Branding23 Sep 2023
Why Corporate Videography should be part of your Brand Strategy
The field of branding is increasingly turning to the power of video. But why? The answer is that above all other brand building tools, video is an incredibly dynamic storytelling medium, that effectively draws in prospective customers and guides them organically and seamlessly through the entire customer journey. A well-crafted corporate video can serve as the cornerstone of your branding efforts, providing a concise and compelling explanation of your unique value proposition. With its remarkable effectiveness and versatility, video marketing has emerged as a driver of growth in the digital age, rapidly eclipsing other media formats in terms of consumer engagement and internet usage.
Corporate videography provides brand messaging to your internal and external customers. It helps in building brands by:
1. Engaging your audience
2. Showcasing your products or services
3. Telling a deeper, richer brand story
4. Generating leads and converting them
5. Ranking your branded website on search engines
The power of video in brand storytelling
Brands need to showcase their effectiveness and superiority to the target audience. In recent years, videos have emerged as a powerful tool to engage and generate interest amongst audiences. Visual and auditory elements of video create an amazing atmosphere for providing excitement among customers to listen to a more involving story. There are various ways through which brands are using the power of videos in their branding campaigns. Below are some of the ways through which videos enhance branding:
Videos can hold an audience’s attention far better than any other medium. Through colour, sound and other audio visual effects, videos attract and engage customers towards brands most effectively. Organisations leverage video at different stages of the customer journey to connect, motivate and drive action. Emotions used in brand videos help in engaging the customers so they feel more inclined towards the brand story. Anger, love, fear, hatred, happiness, surprise etc are all used in video content to trigger both the rational and emotional areas of the human brain.
Customers are also more likely to share videos (and especially emotive ones) much more compared to written and static visual content. This increase in shareability can lead to a video being described as ‘viral’ but also indicates a higher level of satisfaction or trust in a brand which leads to more new consumers investigating the brand qualities for themselves.
Whether you’ve just started a new business, or refreshed your brand and want to increase brand awareness and brand association, then video is a great way to bring your brand messaging to life. Video is the ideal vehicle for delivering your brand’s value proposition and at the same showcasing brand personality through use of tone and voice. Customers connect with videos more quickly and easily via the multi-sensory, audio visual effects and the emotional story-tellling conveyed.
Real-world examples of successful video storytelling
Casper: Product explainer video
The mattress business enterprise Casper created an explainer video that powerfully justifies their product going ‘behind the scenes’ as to the way the mattress is made. Through a combination of expert interviews and simple animations, the video provides trust and credibility showing how the design is based on purchaser studies and product engineering principles.
SCHLEIFRING: Brand awareness and product benefits video
Who knew that slip rings keep the world turning. Using corporate video, Schleifring combines stock video to create a more ‘worldy view’ of their product benefits and creating a more human connection to their brand. Adding 3D animation, the video helps the viewer experience how their technologies run quietly in the background and accompany your everyday life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn7Zx-ak8io
Square: User-case videos
With the help of a video, Square illustrated a scenario in which their Terminal product was used by a dry cleaner. The product is shown in the video to be both portable and a no-fee payment method for end users. Viewers can see how Square helps small businesses by making payments simpler by seeing how the product is used in a real case scenario.
Benefits of Corporate Videography
Are you unsure whether you should invest in a corporate video? There are many benefits a corporate video can have for your company.
Video is unique because it simulates a real-life experience by fusing audio and visual elements. Even if a buyer has never physically come in contact with a brand, product or service, video is so powerful it can help them feel as though they have. This authentic and emotive content that video can leverage makes it a highly effective method for developing a brand’s connection with an audience. By connecting a brand with sound, visuals and messages that stay in the viewer's mind, videos can help a brand come to life in a compelling and memorable way.
With the rise of social media, particularly YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat, individuals are shifting their attention away from reading static content toward watching more videos. Videos are more fascinating, engaging, and educational to people than ‘dry’ text. This explains why consumers retain the knowledge and facts presented in videos over other forms of content. There is also a higher engagement and share rate of video content than simple text-based content.
They say a ‘picture says a thousand words’ so imagine what a video can do! People prefer watching videos over static content because they can be entertained and more fully informed in a relatively short amount of time.
Companies always want to attract new customers towards their brand. But in this competitive world, where time is money, there are so many choices that compete for consumers' interest. Internet and smartphone penetration has made brand competition complex with faster product information delivered to customers with the click of a button.
To stand out, brands can improve their online visibility through search engine optimisation (SEO). Video content embedded in websites and on social media channels improves the search engine ranking, thus attracting customers who are active in the buying cycle towards your products and services.
Videos, through audio and visual elements, bring ideas to life in a more appealing, authentic and comprehensive way than static content. Various forms of videos such as testimonial videos (like word of mouth), explainer videos (simplifying complex ideas) and statistics (evidence-based) all add credibility to messaging, thus creating trust more quickly and easily with consumers.
How to integrate Corporate Videography into your Brand Strategy
Effective corporate videos can help increase your customer base, by incorporating this type of marketing content into your branding strategy. However, to attract the right customers, companies need to develop a smart corporate video strategy. There are many different aspects of making an impactful branded video to consider as part of your strategic approach:
Understanding your target audience
To create a suitable video that compliments your brand, you need to understand the desires, needs, obstacles and preferences of your target audience. Do they need certain products or services; which communication platforms do they use; how do they make purchase decisions; what are the obstacles? The answers to these questions can be the centrepiece to creating an impactful video that aligns with the brand and meets your project objectives.
Aligning video content with brand values and goals
Video content that aims to capture the attention of a target audience needs to communicate brand values i.e. what your brand stands for. Brand values come from the brand’s purpose, vision and personality. Whereas brand objectives are what you want the audience to take away or drive action, brand values are how you want them to feel about your brand when watching the video. It’s how the video is shot and comes across in terms of tonality. As an example an objective may be to increase new customer interactions with the brand, while a feeling your video offers may be curious, passionate, inclusive, caring, strong etc.
Choosing the right type of video
After determining the purpose of creating the video, it's important to choose the right type of video content to maximise impact. There are various types of video content forms such as explainer videos, animated videos, webinars and testimonials or a hybrid of some of these formats.
Selecting the right type of video approach that will resonate with your target audience and brand purpose will help ensure your video stands out and achieves the desired brand objectives.
Collaborating with professionals or leveraging in-house talent
There is a huge difference between creating an impactful video and just any video made without thought. To create a corporate video that delivers higher results for your brand, consider getting expert help. These experts may be within your organisation, or with an outside agency. External agencies also have a broad range of experience that can bring fresh ideas to your video output and access to a range of complimentary skills such as concept ideation, scriptwriting, casting, animation and cinematography.
Best practices for Corporate Videography
For creating high quality videos , here are some tips:
1. First define what you want to achieve through the video
2. Include authenticity and credibility in your story
3. Use high quality visuals
4. Try to make the video succinct and to the point
5. Connect video with business values or purpose
6. Use high quality equipment for sound and lighting
7. Use a suitable, authentic location for videography
Video production can be challenging. It is complex with many factors. The chances of your video meeting your objectives comes back to the quality of your planning and storyboarding.
The script is what comes to mind first when you think of planning. Crucially a moodboard or storyboard is often overlooked but can help bring all stakeholders onto the same page. Before you capture a single shot, a clear video storyboard will enable you to envision the video's appearance, make necessary changes, plan the shoot ahead of time and ultimately produce a really, really good final version.
It's critical to have the proper tools on hand in order to capture high-quality footage in terms of vision and sound for your corporate video. For your corporate video to appear polished and professional, lighting is crucial. To improve the aesthetic attractiveness of your footage, use both natural and artificial lighting. Softbox lighting, reflectors and diffusers can aid in shadow management and lighting setup balance.
Editing is the process of choosing and placing raw video material into a logical sequence and using cuts, transitions and b-roll that effectively conveys your message. To shorten clips, make scene transitions, overlay images or text, and sync audio and visuals, professionals use comprehensive editing software for a superior result.
When creating a corporate video, sound design includes background music, voiceover and sound effects that flawlessly compliment the visuals to create a cohesive and captivating piece of marketing content.
Corporate video creation needs to align with your brand identity. All the video production components such as light, visuals, sound effects, editing needs to resonate with what brand wants to communicate with the customers. An approach to video as part of your brand guideline will help ensure consistency in messaging and alignment with other brand identity elements.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I get started with corporate videography?
To start with Corporate videography, it’s a good idea to learn the essentials of corporate video production. Consider asking for the help of experts if you get stuck in planning or creating an impactful video.
What types of videos can be created for corporate videography?
Corporate videography can include the following types of video:
1. Product videos
2. Training videos
3. Animated videos
4. Explainer videos
5. Demonstration videos
6. Onboarding videos
7. Live videos
8. Event videos
9. Announcement videos
10. Value and Behaviour videos
11. Culture videos
How do I measure the success of my corporate videography?
Measuring the success of your corporate video can be done using key performance indicators (KPIs) that you select for measuring impact against your project’s objectives. Example KPIs for measurement may be views, watch time, engagement (likes, comments, shares), new leads, or conversions.
How much does corporate videography cost?
The cost of video varies greatly and can depend on the duration, the equipment used, location and talent, animation quality and the editing required. Check out our helpful video guide with costed examples at https://belongcreative.com.au/videoprojectguide
